The present invention relates to processing of flexible tickets, and more particularly concerns a system for processing tickets having a single cylinder drive mechanism and which includes a mechanism for inverting a ticket so that both faces of the ticket may be processed.
The prior art of ticket processing terminals is exemplified in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,677,553 and 4,788,419, both assigned in common with this application, and both incorporated herein by reference. In the prior art, a manifest impulse in ticket processing system development has arisen from the need to process both faces of a ticket in the shortest possible time and with a minimal processing structure. By processing is meant the writing of information onto, and reading information off of, one or more faces of the ticket. The incorporated patents illustrate the progress to date in two-face processing of tickets.
FIG. 4 of U.S. Pat. No. 4,677,553 includes a ticket advancing mechanism having a pair of spaced-apart, parallel cylindrical, ticket rollers which move a ticket in a figure-8 pattern for processing on both sides of the ticket. This terminal corresponds to the DM-4 Datamark ticket issuing terminal manufactured and sold by the assignee. This prior art design enables both faces of a ticket to be accessed for processing during a single pass of the ticket through the mechanism because the figure-8 pattern reverses, or inverts, the ticket face in the passage from one roller to the other.
To minimize the size, structural complexity, and cost of ticket processing terminal products, the assignee undertook the development of the single-cylinder ticket advancing terminal described and claimed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,788,419. In this mechanism, a ticket is driven on a circular ticket guide path by a single roller. During a first pass, one face of the ticket is processed and the ticket is expelled from the terminal. Processing of the second ticket phase requires inversion of the ticket by an operator and re-insertion of the inverted ticket into the terminal.
While both prior art mechanisms efficiently and effectively process the two opposing faces of a ticket, the first requires the doubling of structure and control circuitry to support two drive rollers. The second mechanism reduces the proliferation of parts and circuitry by use of a single drive cylinder, but at the cost of lengthening the time to process both faces of a ticket.
Therefore, there is an evident need for a ticket terminal with a processing mechanism which will maintain the minimum part count resulting from the use of a single drive cylinder, yet which will process both faces of a ticket in a minimum amount of time.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a compact, fast ticket processing mechanism which will process both faces of a ticket in a mechanism which employs a single ticket drive cylinder.